Spend your lives in sin and misery

In the House of the Rising Sun(ny)

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Sunny seemed like such a nice girl with her loving family and secure job, but she’s been having a downward spiral lately with Pat being away:

Jobs on the side…

…taking drugs…

…hanging out with bohemians, crooked g-men, criminals, and even corporate stooges…

…forcing them all to live in a crowded tenement…

…sacrificing their living flesh to a digital Lovecraftian avatar of rapaciousness…

…she's just trying to get by, you know?

So this is (nearly*) the Runner deck I took to the UK intercity friendly (team format with 4-strong teams: 1-of each corp and 1-of each runner faction plus a minifaction runner). I’m publishing it because some people seemed interested, not necessarily because it’s the perfect Sunny deck (though it was the best performing Sunny deck ;)). It went 3-2 on the day (my Corp went undefeated so it was facing off against some strong players rather than sweeping the bottom), and I think with more practice against various archetypes it could be a good Tier 2 for SC season.

There are about two interesting things about the deck: a) That I’ve tried to make a hybrid between the Off-Campus builds of Sunny and the Stimhack/SMC builds and b) Endless Hunger and a few card choices to aid it.

Hybrid Strategy

On the former those concepts have been explained by those authors so I won’t retread them, but I think your Sunny deck is bad if you’re not doing at least one of the Off-Campus/Source/Film Critic or SMC/Peddler/Stimhack things. In trying to do both I’ve had to make some tough influence choices but it’s allowed the deck to have some ridiculous starts and react to rushing corps in the first few turns whilst still having a long game plan. I put the Nexus’s back in when they were absent from both prior decks – they fill the function femme does in Timmy’s deck. Round out the breaker suite they are not something I’m trying to slam down as soon as possible as some Sunny decks try to do.

Onto the FUN one: ENDLESS HUNGER!

It’s a super powerful but super focused card hindered by Apex sucking and everyone else having to jump through hoops to support 4MU. Enter Sunny: whose breaker suite conveniently doesn’t need any memory, and who’d really like to be able to break small end the runs when the Corp is rushing, and who unlike Apex laughs at tracers. When you add in the Off Campus Engine to shit resources over the board keeping the Hunger fed isn’t really a problem.

Why not Faust you say? The super card everyone thinks should be on the Most Wanted List. I love Faust but I think Hunger is better here for a bunch of reasons: a) 0c vs 3c matters in the times you need an emergency breaker b) Not AI c) Sunny’s card pool lacks the crazy draw of Anarch’s or Shapers and d) Off-Campus (and Sunny in general) wants to shove cards on the table to start getting that sweet drip value; Faust wants you to hold cards in hand but Hunger lets you recoup value from the cards you’ve already played when you need it.

Doesn’t Data Folding suck with Hunger you say? The times you’ll want Hunger are the times when Folding will be too slow to be useful, you can sac Folding to hunger, and Hunger often doesn’t stay around long. Using a one-shot Hunger to save 6c on breaking Tollbooth is pretty good value for a 0c install (if what’s on the other side is important).

But my installed cards are like precious children, what should I sac to Hunger? Nearly empty Armitage’s, spare Off-Campus’s, NACH in the match ups you don’t want it, Kati when the game won’t last long enough for her to be useful, anything that costs 0 (especially Jak if you have another one in hand), Data Folding, Itself, ANYTHING. Like any Sunny deck you’re not going to win off random accesses, you’ll have to know when you need to get in at any cost.

So when do I use it? Against any corp that’s looking to rush you or plays Tollbooth. It’s an uphill battle for any sunny against Astrobiotics but Hunger evens it out until you can get the Source/Film Critic/Fall Guy thing online. Much like Faust you hold it back as a surprise for whenever the corp thinks you don’t have the money to get in.

Why should I play this deck?

If you want to make slower corp decks miserable – there is a diversity of tools in this deck to soft lock scoring or meat damage victories and you can get to those situations faster than you’d think with Off-Campus draw. Or you can just bury them with your drip advantage. It matches up against ice in a different way than more orthodox decks (Komainu is a breeze, Data Raven folds to NACH and link, Enigma taxes as much as Ichi) which makes for an interesting play experience and reevaluate the ways you think about getting into places. You can also explode out against anyone who thinks they can rush easily against Sunny.

Future thoughts

Councilman as a 0 cost neutral connection that fights caprice and SSCG is going to amazing for this deck, and Sports Hopper won’t hurt (replacing the Earthrises and the Access to Globalsec)

*Note 1: the actual deck had 1 Multithreader instead of the second Fall guy – 100% the wrong choice.